A midterm election in which Democrats would perform better than in presidential years? :dubious: Uh, yeah, to call that a seismic shift would be the political understatement of the century thus far.
Sure, of course that’s it. Same reason I will be voting Trump or Cruz in the primary, unless Hillary still needs my help by then (which looks increasingly possible).
If the four super old justices are replaced by then, or maybe 2024, then sure: let’s give it a whirl.
In politics, we can rarely marshal hard evidence for anything–not least because elections are rare, discrete events that we can’t rerun multiple times with different factors changed. But what I can tell you is that I spent a couple years participating in the Good Judgment Project, funded by government spooks (IARPA) to test the value of crowdsourcing geopolitical intelligence. And I was among the top 20% of forecasters in that project. Not enough to make me a “superforecaster” (the top one or two percent), but still pretty good. The Freakonomics podcast discussed the project recently with its administrator:
Those bonafides established, the really relevant portion to the point I’m trying to make is addressed later on in the same podcast:
In that project, I developed a lot of experience, with solid results, at forecasting unique historical events and assigning them probabilities. (Note too that in the “NH bragging rights” thread, I called Kasich’s second place finish, and predicted five candidates’ vote percentages to within less than one percentage point.) And that is what I’m offering as “evidence”. That is my argument. You’ll dismiss it, but I don’t see you offering hard evidence on the other side.
At first I didn’t get what you meant, but when I did I burst out laughing. Thanks for that. I must be more careful with the language.
Seismic shift or cult of personality? It’s possible there is an left-wing equivalent to the Tea Party brewing, but I’ll believe it when I see those shiny lefties ousting the establishment democrats in congress. There has always been an underrepresented liberal wing of the party. Sanders is thriving in a unique environment, though.
What, you think Bernie Sanders is cult-of-personality material?! I’m sure he doesn’t think so. His only remarkable appeal there is his consistent honesty and integrity, which ain’t the same as charisma. His groundswell of support is for the message and the politics, not for the wild-haired old Jew.
I understand the electability concern, and it’s possible that I might have to vote based on that consideration. But if, as seems increasingly likely, the Republican nominee is either Trump or Cruz, then it’s a nonissue, since either Democrat will beat either of them by a comfortable margin. Clinton might be able to win by a bigger margin, but that won’t matter.
Imagine a more disciplined Trump (yes, it could happen) running as a centrist in the general against a socialist, in these United States. Trump isn’t stupid, and with the prize so close at hand I can easily picture him adopting a strategy and sticking to it. It’s just not worth the risk for a president who would be a virtual lame duck from jump street.
ETA: I don’t want a Hillary Clinton presidency, but losing is a much worse scenario
:dubious: I’m trying really hard not to make it personal, but when your entire argument is that we should trust you because you’re super-smart at this sort of thing, it’s hard not to make it personal.
Suffice it to say that your evidence is laughable. Sure, I haven’t marshaled evidence for the opposing viewpoint, but that’s because I’m not making the opposite argument. Indeed, in my experience, scandals very rarely decide a political race, especially penny-ante bullshit scandals like these. I think the entire thing about scandals is kind of a pathetic distraction from issues-oriented discussion, and it’s usually resorted to by people who know they’d lose on the issues.
The null hypothesis is that neither candidate will be disproprtionately affected by scandals. It’s up to you to show otherwise, and your being a Super Duper Secret Predictor (even able to predict my rejection of your claim–oooh!) is profoundly unpersuasive.
Why, if I may ask. Genuinely curious. Too left wing for you?
As for me, I lean pretty far to the left and on the issues I think Bernie gets it right the vast majority of the time, granted he has some unworkable ideas, ie his as-proposed health care plan.
At the same time, I really do think the guy is more or less unelectable. Quite disappointing, really, because I was always a huge admirer of his long before his primary run, and I was estatic to learn he would be in the race. Then I thought about it and realized he really has no hope if winning.
The best thing about Sanders, IMHO, is that he’s highlighting the direction the Democratic Party is headed. Sanders is winning 75-80% (off the top of my head) of young voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. So even if people like Morgenstern oppose Sanders on ideological grounds, in around 25-30 years, we might finally have the left wing populist party I’ve always wanted.
I like Sanders, but I also dislike Hillary. She was late in defending the LGBT community, (and claimed it wasn’t due to the political environment at the time – something I could forgive if it were the case,) and, as mentioned, was for the Iraq War. She’s a liar, which I don’t say as an insult, because most politicians are, but Bernie seems to be a straight shooter. His record in decision making seems consistent.
I’m not sure if his hope for a “Revolution” is realistic, but I never thought he had a chance of making it this far, and just because it’s possibly a little far-fetched, when will we get another opportunity to try?
Sanders vs. Cruz or Trump is a pick 'em in my estimation (which per LHOD is a very poor estimation indeed…but LHOD, what were your NH picks again?). Hillary is 98% to win.
I have some humility about my prognostication powers, and defer to people with statistical evidence to support their opinions in such matters; I pulled nothing out of my butt about NH yesterday and am highly skeptical of any claims people make about the future without evidence.
Sounds like you are one of those people the Good Judgment project head was talking about who is intelligent but not well suited to the prediction field.
Why is “lean” the only option? I sit down–nay, lie down–to the left. I’d like a real Socialist, but I suppose I can live with Sanders, a FDR/LBJ liberal masquerading as one.
The term of art for it is Social Democrat, but hey, if the worse appellation you can apply to him is an FDR for the 21st century, where do I sign?!?!?!
If you think Bernie has a chance in hell of beating the Republican candidate, you’re kind of out of touch with reality. He wants to raise taxes on the middle class. And he identifies as a Socialist. You really think he can win a general election? It can’t. Personally, I have no problem with either of these (my politics more closely matches Bernie). But I am so not risking giving the White House to a Republican (think about Supreme Court noms before you decide to sit out our vote 3rd party)…especially this batch.
Hillary has survived decades of GOP bullshit. Next time you have a knee-jerk reaction to Hillary’s politics, take a step back and examine why the knee is jerking. The media, even beyond the Fox/Drudge/Rush crowd, has never been all that fair to her. She has put up with a lot of shit.
If “suited to the prediction field” means “pulling things out of my ass and showing absurd levels of confidence in them,” I tearfully confess my unsuitability.
I think the number one rule is don’t give Republicans something they can make into a 10 second sound bite. “Vote for me or vote for socialism” isn’t a current I want to swim against. Absent that s-word, Sanders is a compelling candidate. We’ve had enough bending over backwards to Republicans, time to realize they won’t work with us, we have to work around them. But I think Hillary is more in tune with what can be done. We know what we want to do, but we have to first do what we can do.
Which Trump would that be, Ivanka? If she runs, I’ll worry about it then. Meanwhile, the Trump we have might certainly attempt to run as a centrist in the general, but he cannot succeed. He burned that bridge long ago.
